Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Appears Live on MSNBC's Meet the Press

December 9, 2021

Chuck Todd: Rising cases of Delta and uncertainty around Omicron have injected a new sense of urgency around the debate over vaccine mandates and in New York city, a slew of new vaccine requirements announced earlier this week for children and private sector workers has upped the urgency even more. Starting Tuesday, all children between ages of five and 11 must be at least partially vaccinated in order to most of the city’s indoor venues, and to participate in extracurricular activities. Only 20 percent of kids have received their first shot, that means more than half a million children need to get jabbed in the next five days if they want to sit in restaurants or go to basketball practice. Joining me now is the Mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio. Mr. Mayor, good to see you.

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Good to see you, Chuck.

Todd: Look, I'm somebody who is a big advocate of the vaccine mandate because I think there's no other way, we're going to get it done. But why are you comfortable mandating a vaccine for five to 11-year-olds right now that is only for emergency use?  I say this because nobody else has felt comfortable doing that. And you know, as a parent, I – you know, for five-to-11 there's – I get wanting to wait until this – the FDA finishes the full process. Why aren't you giving parents some leeway here, considering this is only emergency use?

Mayor: Chuck, I'm thinking as a parent myself. when my kids were younger, all I thought about – the first thing I thought about was health and wellbeing. And we are seeing now, the Omicron variant, it's having a particularly big impact on younger people. We also are seeing that it is spreading very, very quickly. This variant is fast. We need to be faster. So, this is about protecting kids and protecting our city. This – remember, this particular mandate is for things like indoor dining and entertainment. It's not whether you can go to school or any other thing. It's a choice. If a family wants to partake in those things, we're saying help keep your own child safe, but also everyone around you safe. Part of why the restaurants in New York City are full again is because we have a vaccine mandate in place and the customers know they're safe and the employees know they're safe. And we’ve got to keep building on it, because Omicron is bearing down on us. Winter's bearing down on us. We’ve got to go farther.

Todd: Look, I understand your concern, but I go back to the issue of how you build trust in this and the issue of the emergency authorization. You know, it's one thing for people that right now where it is available, they're adults mandating that for them. But whether maybe your kid has a heart condition, maybe you're worried that they do, you want to see a little extra amount of testing here. It's the emergency authorization part that I feel like makes this a harder to make it a no brainer. Are you at all empathetic here of parents that want to just take a pause, they're vaccinated, you know, they're keeping their children within a certain set of parameters, if they themselves care enough to be vaccinated, why not trust the parents on this for a bit?

Mayor: I trust parents entirely, Chuck. And I think it's every parent's choice obviously to make for their own child. But I’ve got to tell you, in the end, we were thinking about what's going to stop a pandemic from, once again, causing our city to shut down. We've been through that before the restrictions to shut down. This is about something bigger. So, listen, I hear you loud and clear. For example, if a child has a physical condition that makes a vaccination impossible, we do leave space, absolutely for medical accommodation, that kind of situation. But, for the vast majority of kids, we know that vaccination will keep them safe. We know we've seen a pattern now with the vaccine for months and months and months that we know it works. And the greater danger is the young person getting COVID and then bringing it home, including to older family, men members who really could be in danger. So, I do have empathy and I think there's been a lot of struggles and families thinking these issues through. There's also been a lot of misinformation, but I'll tell you something, Chuck, our medical leadership, one voice, says we need stronger mandates because  it's what you said earlier they're the thing that's actually moved the numbers that United States of America, about 60 percent now fully vaccinated, all residents, New York city at 70 percent of all our residents because the mandates move people forward.

Todd: So, who do you want to enforce this mandate? Are you asking very weary, small businesses to enforce this mandate? I mean, you know, a lot of them are short staffed as it is. It's an easy – they're just getting some kind of – I mean, it's not easy to have a lot of these businesses – are not comfortable having to be bad cop here.

Mayor: You know, it's actually – it's a great question. But the reality with our restaurant mandate, we've now had it for months and months. And it’s not only for adults, it's been for that 12- to 17-year-old group and it's been going fine. Honestly, what I've heard from folks in the restaurant community is that it actually brought a lot of customers back, because they knew they were going to a safe environment. It hasn't been so hard. Look, restaurants and bars have been checking IDs for a long time. It's not that hard to show us your card, good, you're in, thanks. We've had a really good experience. We've had inspections from time to time, but we found overwhelmingly cooperation from the restaurant community, from the theaters. I mean, you know, Broadway is booming right now, they've had the mandates in place. And you’ve got to remember what brings the business back, when people know they're safe. That's what brings people back to the restaurants, the theaters, etcetera. That's why right now a lot of our economy is coming back in New York City. But what I'm scared about is that could all come crashing down if we don't stay ahead of Omicron and we don't stay ahead of this cold weather reality. COVID loves cold weather, we know that.

Todd: Nothing's worse for businesses, though, than uncertainty. How closely have you worked with your successor, Eric Adams, on this decision? Because, you know, he's saying he's going to think it through. There’s a lot of whiplash here if you implement it and, the second he takes the oath, he pulls it back. And if that's the case, this feels like a publicity stunt.

Mayor: Not in the least, Chuck. We have been implementing – you've watched it – mandate after mandate. I started months and months ago, I said we would climb the ladder as needed while we need it now for all our school employees, our hospital employees. We did that first. Then, all our public servants. Now, about 94 percent of all the employees. I have almost 400,000 employees, 94 percent vaccinated. We did it with the restaurants, indoor entertainment. It has been a huge success. This has been going on for months and months and months. And we've proven every step that it works. I've had great conversations with Eric Adams. I think – you know, he is a friend and an ally. He's someone I believe in. And he said very clearly, including publicly, he's going to be making his decisions, he's going to listen to the doctors, to the medical leadership, he's going to follow the data and the science. Chuck, the medical leadership of this country locally and nationally has said this kind of mandate that we have now for private sector businesses is exactly what we need a lot more of in this country. If we want to end the COVID-era, if we want to keep COVID stretching out for years and years – well, okay, we can keep to the status quo. But that's not going to work. We need to end the COVID era and vaccine mandates are the one thing that has proven to actually work.

Todd: Let me ask you this, if you knew Eric Adams was going to reverse this, for sure, would you have attempted to implement it?

Mayor: Chuck, I'm here – my job right now is to protect New Yorkers and I'm doing what I believe will protect them in the here and now. I also believe the Mayor-elect’s going to look at the facts and the facts support continuing this and deepening this kind of approach. I really believe that. So, of course I would do it, because it's the right thing to do right now as we're facing this threat. And for businesses, Chuck, worst thing in world would be another shutdown. I really want to emphasize that. We went through hell, we lost a lot of jobs, people lost their livelihood. We cannot let that happen again.

Todd: Are you going to rethink your gubernatorial race now that Tish James decided she's not running?

Mayor: I've been real clear, Chuck, I'm going be going around the State of New York, starting next month, talking to the people of this state. I want to stay in public service. I want to address the issues I've been focused on, fighting income equality, getting more kids access to better education. I have a lot of energy to do that and I'll have a lot more to say in the coming next few weeks.

Todd: Alright. Bill de Blasio, the outgoing Mayor of New York City. Thank you for coming on, sharing your perspective.

Mayor: Thank you, Chuck.

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